1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of telecommunications. More particularly, the invention hereof concerns a voice-activated telephone directory and call placement system accessible over the telecommunications network which allows a caller to store a personalized telephone directory, and to retrieve a selected directory listing therefrom by speaking a series of voice entries. In response, the system selectively provides a voice rendition of a destination telephone number associated with the listing and optionally initiates dialing of the number.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In prior art, voice-activated, telephone directory systems, a number of voice templates are stored corresponding to respective directory listings from which an associated destination telephone number can be identified and retrieved. Examples of such prior art systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,928,302, 4,797,929 and Re.32,012 which are hereby incorporated by reference.
These prior art systems present problems, however, when handling a large number of stored directory listings and corresponding voice templates. For example, the time required to compare a caller-spoken entry with directory listing templates increases with the number of stored listings. Because of this, the storage of a sufficient number of directory listings to be genuinely useful to the caller results in excessive processing time. Additionally, the likelihood of errors also increases with the number of stored listings which further detracts from system utility.